1) Discussing with Laura, my best friend, what life is all about and why we are here, with Depeche Mode blasting in the background in the 80’s.
2) Chatting with Mrs. Giammanco, my high school teacher, who told me I was her best student but didn’t deserve a top grade because I never worked hard at anything.
3) Visiting my dying grandfather and having nothing to say.
4) Feeling lost after college and talking to my dad who told me that he didn’t leave his house for a year in his 20’s because life was daunting.
5) Yelling at Laura about her selfishness hysterically in the toilets of a bar in Sifnos, Greece after she kissed George (who I had liked!)
6) Talking to my Editor-in-Chief about needing me to manage the magazine because he needed to get operated and treated for cancer.
7) Asking what sign Alistair was and after telling me “Pisces” asking him if his feet hurt.
8) Telling Emanuele that I would not be able to promote him.
9) Talking to my mother about falling in love with Alistair and having her accept the situation without judgment.
10) Talking to Annabelle about how important it is to be generous and giving in life.
Monday, October 1, 2007
3. Top Ten List of Significant Moments (big or small, life-changing, epiphany, or slight shifts in the way you see the world) in your Life
1) Witnessing my grandmother’s funeral when I was 6 and seeing my mother breakdown in front of the coffin.
2) Becoming captain of the high school basketball team at 5” and feeling everything is achievable if you desire it.
3) Studying World religions in high school and being shocked and disillusioned by the Catholic Church and realizing priests are human.
4) Facing the precariousness of life on vacation in Puerto Rico after finding out our friend from Tufts had committed suicide.
5) Understanding that my whole life I waited for a Prince charming to appear and love just doesn’t work that way.
6) Accepting that I sold myself and my ideals to work for a big multinational corporation and it’s ok.
7) Figuring out that I don’t want my life to be about a successful international business career and money which in no way is correlated to happiness.
8) Buying and moving into my new house and feeling trapped and deciding that no clutter and lack of possessions gives you freedom.
9) Losing a little of my innocence each year watching people do anything for a little power.
10) Seeing my parents as real people and learning to accept them and take care of them especially after my father’s stroke.
2) Becoming captain of the high school basketball team at 5” and feeling everything is achievable if you desire it.
3) Studying World religions in high school and being shocked and disillusioned by the Catholic Church and realizing priests are human.
4) Facing the precariousness of life on vacation in Puerto Rico after finding out our friend from Tufts had committed suicide.
5) Understanding that my whole life I waited for a Prince charming to appear and love just doesn’t work that way.
6) Accepting that I sold myself and my ideals to work for a big multinational corporation and it’s ok.
7) Figuring out that I don’t want my life to be about a successful international business career and money which in no way is correlated to happiness.
8) Buying and moving into my new house and feeling trapped and deciding that no clutter and lack of possessions gives you freedom.
9) Losing a little of my innocence each year watching people do anything for a little power.
10) Seeing my parents as real people and learning to accept them and take care of them especially after my father’s stroke.
2. Top Ten List of meals you've made with love for someone or were made with love, for you.
I don’t really enjoy cooking and my tactic is to teach the little I know to my partner and have him cook for me. I usually only cook if I am depressed but I love to eat other people’s cooking:
1) Having my grandmother cook plates especially for me (pasta burro e parmigiano) on Christmas eve (la Vigilia) since I don’t eat fish and tradition has it that only fish plates are served.
2) Requesting my favorite meal on my birthday to my mother every year which consisted of fettine panate e patatine fritte (breaded cutlets and homemade fries) with the grand finale of Betty Crocker chocolate cake with fudge frosting (these mixes were very hard to come by in the 80’s in Italy).
3) Making croccantino with my father and sister as a child. It consists of melting sugar, adding hazelnuts and putting it on the cold marble windowsill to settle before chopping it in bits. It was particularly good when the hazelnuts were still slightly warm.
4) Having merenda (mid-day snack for children) in Belmonte (a town in the country) of bread (pane casareccio) and nutella. Or if I was really lucky getting my friend Caterina’s grandmother to warm up a fettina (slice of meat) from lunch in oil and then warm the bread in the same oil and make a sandwich.
5) Celebrating Thanksgiving in Rome every year and having my mother make tortellini in brodo (in chicken broth) and turkey with fabulous roast potatoes that stick to the pan that I would later scrape out.
6) During my childhood, my father would come home on Sunday evenings and make pizza from scratch. I would help him knead the dough and decorate the pizza. The whole house would have a reassuring smell of pizza every Sunday night.
7) Going to Brookline to eat kosher food (I remember the schnitzels) every Saturday after sundown for a year when I was dating a Jewish guy that turned orthodox on me and I had adapted for love.
8) Cooking pans and pans of lasagna in my pajamas when I was depressed and pining to leave Boston to go back to Rome.
9) Inviting my parents and my sister for the first Christmas outside our family home to my house and taking hours to peel “puntarelle” (a hearty chicory that you serve with a garlic and oil) by hand vs. buying them cleaned and cut.
10) Eating special spaghetti Bolognese cooked by my English boyfriend for his kids and me, watching “Chitty, chitty bang bang” DVD.
1) Having my grandmother cook plates especially for me (pasta burro e parmigiano) on Christmas eve (la Vigilia) since I don’t eat fish and tradition has it that only fish plates are served.
2) Requesting my favorite meal on my birthday to my mother every year which consisted of fettine panate e patatine fritte (breaded cutlets and homemade fries) with the grand finale of Betty Crocker chocolate cake with fudge frosting (these mixes were very hard to come by in the 80’s in Italy).
3) Making croccantino with my father and sister as a child. It consists of melting sugar, adding hazelnuts and putting it on the cold marble windowsill to settle before chopping it in bits. It was particularly good when the hazelnuts were still slightly warm.
4) Having merenda (mid-day snack for children) in Belmonte (a town in the country) of bread (pane casareccio) and nutella. Or if I was really lucky getting my friend Caterina’s grandmother to warm up a fettina (slice of meat) from lunch in oil and then warm the bread in the same oil and make a sandwich.
5) Celebrating Thanksgiving in Rome every year and having my mother make tortellini in brodo (in chicken broth) and turkey with fabulous roast potatoes that stick to the pan that I would later scrape out.
6) During my childhood, my father would come home on Sunday evenings and make pizza from scratch. I would help him knead the dough and decorate the pizza. The whole house would have a reassuring smell of pizza every Sunday night.
7) Going to Brookline to eat kosher food (I remember the schnitzels) every Saturday after sundown for a year when I was dating a Jewish guy that turned orthodox on me and I had adapted for love.
8) Cooking pans and pans of lasagna in my pajamas when I was depressed and pining to leave Boston to go back to Rome.
9) Inviting my parents and my sister for the first Christmas outside our family home to my house and taking hours to peel “puntarelle” (a hearty chicory that you serve with a garlic and oil) by hand vs. buying them cleaned and cut.
10) Eating special spaghetti Bolognese cooked by my English boyfriend for his kids and me, watching “Chitty, chitty bang bang” DVD.
1. Top Ten List of the topics, moments, and subjects you've always wanted to write about, but thought was impossible or too scary to actually write ab
1) The disappearance of our family dog “Doggy” and my father’s link to it.
2) The story of Belmonte and its people— a small town in the middle of Lazio in a cul de sac with 1000 inhabitants where my grandmother was born (like Winesburg, Ohio).
3) The relationship I have with my crazy family and the love I feel for them.
4) The life of my favorite uncle who was put in jail for cocaine trafficking.
5) Falling in love with a married man.
6) The feeling I get when I am on a Greek island and watch the sun disappear in the horizon over the sea.
7) Desiring a child.
8) A screenplay based on the Marketing department in a big global Multinational.
9) The reality of love after the initial couple of years.
10) A Novel about growing up.
2) The story of Belmonte and its people— a small town in the middle of Lazio in a cul de sac with 1000 inhabitants where my grandmother was born (like Winesburg, Ohio).
3) The relationship I have with my crazy family and the love I feel for them.
4) The life of my favorite uncle who was put in jail for cocaine trafficking.
5) Falling in love with a married man.
6) The feeling I get when I am on a Greek island and watch the sun disappear in the horizon over the sea.
7) Desiring a child.
8) A screenplay based on the Marketing department in a big global Multinational.
9) The reality of love after the initial couple of years.
10) A Novel about growing up.
Monday, September 17, 2007
My hands
They are sweet, reassuring hands that I find myself stroking during long and tedious meetings. My mother used to say my hands were like gomma piuma—goose down in Italian. They are in fact soft and plump with short little chubby fingers that are usually topped off by imperfectly manicured fingernails. No rings grace my hands. There are, however, two little adjacent scars on the back of my left hand near the base of my thumb. One, shaped like a little Sicily, was inflicted by my mother years ago while she was driving and I was acting up in the back of the car. She kept one hand on the steering wheel and swung her free hand towards the back of the car and grabbed anything she could find. In this case my hand and with it, a piece of skin. The second I inflicted upon myself. This scar is longer, whiter, deeper and probably had needed stitches at the time. As a child I loved to design and sew new clothes making skirts out of pillowcases, and knitting my own scarves (too long and thin). I was never particularly precise, just creative. Once, I was ripping out the stitches of a hem zealously, and ended up missing the mark and tearing into my skin. I always caress these hands that keep accompanying me heroically through life. I stroke the supple skin and scars and all.
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